It has long been known to bind booklets in accordance with the method described above and with the aid of a binding machine of the kind described above. Examples of such methods and such machines are found in EP581314 and EP0879150.
According to an earlier known technique each booklet cover is always fed in a folded state, i.e. roughly as it appears when it constitutes a cover for a finished booklet or with the front side and the rear side folded outwards somewhat, so that the booklet cover will have a U-shape cross-section. The booklet covers are delivered in a cassette in which the covers are already folded in this way and fed out from the cassette. This technique has been found to be reliable and expedient and provides a cost effective booklet binding procedure for both small and large binding series. Because the booklet covers are disposed folded in the cassette in which they are delivered and from which they are fed into the machine it means that packing of the booklet covers in the cassette is somewhat space demanding. Another draw-back is that feeding of the folded booklet covers into a machine requires the use of particular infeed means in the form of suction cups which grip the booklet cover to be fed into the machine. Such an infeed mechanism complicates the machine by requiring the presence of pneumatic means.
The object of the present invention is to avoid said drawbacks and to provide a simple and more effective booklet binding means.